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I have given up on "cutting" and "bulking" - doesn't seem to work unless your willing to be strict with macro's and Calories - I think more so than the young guys. Chillen would be a good example of the discipline needed at our age to be ripped. Possible, hell ya, but I think most of us Geezers are too stubborn or set in our ways to do it.

At my age, I simply just want to be healthy. I know for a fact my lifting will follow health. I have put every ounce of energy and soul into my health, and I do feel it has paid off.

I was actually tested by internal medicine last year and this year, due to my auto-immune disease and Birdshot. they actually were able to determine I have the healthiest cell structure they have ever tested, and the Doc told me he wished he had my health and that there is a good chance I will live to 100, based on the health and vitality of every cell in my body.

How did this happen? DIET

You are what you eat my fellow geezers. Plain and simple.

One other tip for you all. Want to reduce your risk of Alzheimer's to practically zero? Go gluten free, eat plenty of healthy fats such as DHA, and do light-moderate aerobic exercise (alongside lifting of course)

Why would you want to do this? because your risk of Alzheimers is 50%.right now. That disease is the #1 dread of all of us who are middle aged

This has been proven to prompt your body to grow brain cells big time.

One other tip for you all. Want to reduce your risk of Alzheimer's to practically zero? Go gluten free, eat plenty of healthy fats such as DHA, and do light-moderate aerobic exercise (alongside lifting of course)

Why would you want to do this? because your risk of Alzheimers is 50%.right now. That disease is the #1 dread of all of us who are middle aged

This has been proven to prompt your body to grow brain cells big time.

Interesting. I'm not so sure as to the veracity of anti-gluten claims, for those who don't suffer from serious gluten allergies or the like (celiac disease, f'rex... sp?).

But the rest sounds very much like common sense, and pretty close to universal. Good stuff.

On that note (re: Alzheimer's), I've been reading up on curcumin - and no, that's not cumin, as I initially thought. It's actually found in decent quantities in turmeric, and possibly a few other ingredients. But the curcumin is far better absorbed if you have it with, say, black pepper! Yeah, weird, but also true - it's the piperine in that, that helps.

Some combinations of spices, or indeed other foods (e.g., meat plus veges/fruit high in vitamin C), really do go together neatly, it would seem.

The easy way though, is to dose up on pure curcumin as a supplement. More and more people seem to be heading that way. Understandably!

Anyway, there's more studies to be done, and I also need to get onto some more reading of what's already out there. Looks promising though, I'd say.

in 1996 I had a diffused disc and developed foot drop. Had to have surgery to repair back before I damaged nerve too much (I still have some slight residual affects). I didn't start training until 11 years later. By then, my body had developed some crazy imbalances. My first two years of training, I was able to cut the weight and learn the form, but it seemed like I was always hurting. As I began to move into barbell training from DB/BW training, I first saw relief and then wham. I probably went two years, constantly battling the back and sciatica pain. At one point I thought I was going to have to go back to the Dr. for another surgery. it was at this point that I really began addressing my imbalances. I was quad strong and lumbar strong, but had a weak core and even weaker and tighter hamstrings and glutes. I have discovered that I have to balance my leg work hitting both quads and hamstrings with a bit more emphasis on hams and glutes. As long as I am consistent with this, coupled with adequate warm up and stretching, I have no problems. If I let that balance go for longer than a week or two, I begin to pay for it.

Bottom line? When I was younger I could compensate for weaknesses. Now that I am older, if I don't address them, I feel them in a painful sort of way.

For me warm ups have become way more important, I take more time to warm and it helps me to get my workout done with out any of the little pains that I used to encounter.

As for things I can't do -- I don't do any type of incline or decline work - seems to kill my shoulders and it's probably not all that necessary anyhow...

I have found that for me, I need to stay away from high rep work -- seems to be where I hurt myself more than with heavy weights and low reps -- don't know if that's age or body type but when I stopped high reps I stopped most of my injuries.

Interesting. I'm not so sure as to the veracity of anti-gluten claims, for those who don't suffer from serious gluten allergies or the like (celiac disease, f'rex... sp?).

But the rest sounds very much like common sense, and pretty close to universal. Good stuff.

On that note (re: Alzheimer's), I've been reading up on curcumin - and no, that's not cumin, as I initially thought. It's actually found in decent quantities in turmeric, and possibly a few other ingredients. But the curcumin is far better absorbed if you have it with, say, black pepper! Yeah, weird, but also true - it's the piperine in that, that helps.

Some combinations of spices, or indeed other foods (e.g., meat plus veges/fruit high in vitamin C), really do go together neatly, it would seem.

The easy way though, is to dose up on pure curcumin as a supplement. More and more people seem to be heading that way. Understandably!

Anyway, there's more studies to be done, and I also need to get onto some more reading of what's already out there. Looks promising though, I'd say.

Yep Dray - going gluten free, even if you don't have to, is the biggest part of the equation when it comes to the brain. Another good example is that some autistic kids symptoms have disappeared after going gluten and dairy free. The kids still have autism, but have no symptoms. Same thing for a celiac - going gluten free doesn't mean I don't have celiac anymore, it means I have no symptoms. Jenny McCarthy's kid is an example.

Not a "geezer," but I can contribute some information OR anecdotes about some of this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bamazav

So, to get us back on track. As a geezer, are there movements you just can't do? Have you tried a modified Sheiko, Bulgarian or Smolov type routine? How many days a week do you train? How many exercises do you do? Total reps, sets?

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There are movements that even us with less life experience can't do! Unfortunately, you need to figure those out on your own. Even when you do find a movement, if you really want to perform it, sometimes you can fix it through mobility and flexibility work, alongside stabilization strengthening.

As for Sheiko/Bulgarian/Smolov

Smolov as we know it as a specific program laid out to increase the squat of olympic weightlifters. There isn't much modification that can be done to it, really. That means you can either tolerate it, or you can't. That's mostly up to you; maybe there are some older lifters who have experimented with it.

The "Bulgarian" programs are largely daily max squats and high frequency (forgive me if you're referring to something else). I think that if you are honest with yourself, you could perform daily squat maxes. Again, you would need to experiment with what your body can recover from and what you would consider your daily "max." Note here maxes should never be too ugly. You'd then do back off sets based on a % of your daily max.

Sheiko. Ah, Sheiko. The thing with Sheiko is that those numbered programs are not even endorsed entirely by Boris Sheiko anymore (as per his website, his forum, and his communication with other lifters who have shared this information). He has modified the numbered programs and suggested a plan based on them, but the true beauty of "Sheiko" is his coaching and the philosophies behind his programming. You can purchase BS as a coach, or you could read up and do your own programming. He has a ton of information available on his website and the forum as to how you would go about programming, but I believe as a coach he would largely consider a few different things:
1) age
2) life stressors
3) time available for recovery work
4) time available for training
5) goals

He is noted recently (today, maybe?) of posting that programs must consider the average lifter (and not just the highly talented individuals), and thus he doesn't like generalized programs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moeheep

A while back I trained Hepburn style....doubles working up to triples with 90% 1RM....I loved it, it will probably the next thing I do.

It was pretty hard and all I did was Squat and bench on day, and Dead, press and BB rows another. Believe me, that was enough. The way it was laid out, I added weight to the bars every 7 workouts (3 1/2 weeks)

By the way Bam...EXCELLENT topic...we need to start a "Geezer" section on this forum.

I know a fellow in his 40's who trains Hepburn style and has made tremendous progress with his benchpress and deadlift. He seems to love the Hepburn training method(s)!